Once upon a time, Faith Sullivan dreamed of being a famous painter who lived in an apartment overlooking Central Park. Unfortunately, life had other ideas and at 26, she’s still running, working and living at Sully’s, her family’s traditional Irish pub in Brooklyn with her stubborn, ailing father. And she was perfectly fine with her lot until suddenly her three best friends each found their prince, and her own happily ever after seemed like another dream lost. Until one day a long, tall Australian walks into her bar and her loved-up besties decided to play Fairy Godmothers. Ex pro-surfer turned beer baron, Rafael Quartermaine is in New York for a month on business. He’s looking for a pub to launch Baron lager on the American market and Sully’s is perfect. All he has to do is convince Faith, the traditionalist, to say yes. And once he’s done that, maybe he can convince her that all work and no play makes Faith a dull girl. Faith’s connection to her family and Sully’s is absolute, and Raf’s business drive and itchy feet aren’t conducive to long term, so it should be an easy break when duty calls Faith back into the fold on the evening of the ball. But running out on the baron is harder than she ever imagined… Will their fling sizzle out, or become something more?

A dad’s “charming, funny” memoir of trying to pass along his refined culinary tastes, with some kid-friendly recipes included (Neal Pollack). Armed with the belief that kids don’t need puree in a jar or special menus when eating out, restaurant critic and food writer Matthew Amster-Burton was determined to share his love of all things culinary with his daughter, Iris. From the high of rediscovering tastes through a child’s unedited reaction to the low of realizing his precocious vegetable fiend was just going through a phase, Matthew discovered that raising an adventurous eater is about exposure, invention, and patience. Sharing in Matthew’s culinary capers is little Iris, a budding gourmand and a zippy critic herself—who makes huge sandwiches, gobbles up hot chilies, and even helps around the kitchen. This account, with dozens of delicious recipes and notes on which dishes can be prepared by “little fingers,” reminds us: “Food is fun, and you get to enjoy it three times a day, plus snacks.” “A very timely and excellent book.” —Anthony Bourdain “A fast, funny memoir punctuated with sensible advice and recipes . . . Encourages adults to chill the heck out and have fun cooking with their kids.” —Seattle Weekly “An antidote to the ubiquitous advice that bland food is best for little ones.” —Associated Press “Full of great ideas for family meals. In a world of culinary pandering to kids . . . Amster-Burton gets the recipe right.” —Neal Pollack, author of Alternadad “Amster-Burton is equal parts Mario Batali, Ray Romano, Dr. Spock of toddler cuisine, and Mr. Spock of child logic.” —Steven Shaw, author of Turning the Tables

Satisfy your craving for bacon no matter the meal with over 50 sensational recipes from some of America’s hottest chefs. Legendary chef and food writer James Beard wrote of bacon, “There are few sights that appeal to me more than the streaks of lean and fat in a good side of bacon, or the lovely round of pinkish meat framed in delicate white fat that is Canadian bacon.” Whether you crave its flavorful crunch in the morning, the salty taste it lends to a Mediterranean BLT, or the way it transforms Spaghetti Carbonara, you’ll never be disappointed by bacon. In I Love Bacon, Jayne Rockmill presents more than 50 bacon-themed recipes from some of America’s hottest chefs—from Cat Cora to Rick Tramonto, Ming Tsai, Jasper White, Andy Husbands and Joe Yonan, Pichet Ong, Bradford Thompson, John Besh, and many others—along with mouthwatering photography. With instructions on how to make bacon from scratch and how to feature bacon in brunch dishes, small bites, soups, salads, sides, entrees, and even cocktails and desserts, this full-color cookbook proves that bacon isn’t just for breakfast anymore.

Brabbling Women takes its title from a 1662 law enacted by Virginia's burgesses, which was intended to offer relief to the "poore husbands" forced into defamation suits because their "brabling" wives had slandered or scandalized their neighbors. To quell such episodes of female misrule, lawmakers decreed that husbands could choose either to pay damages or to have their wives publicly ducked.But there was more at stake here. By examining women's use of language, Terri L. Snyder demonstrates how women resisted and challenged oppressive political, legal, and cultural practices in colonial Virginia. Contending that women's voices are heard most clearly during episodes of crisis, Snyder focuses on disorderly speech to illustrate women's complex relationships to law and authority in the seventeenth century.Ordinary women, Snyder finds, employed a variety of strategies to prevail in domestic crises over sexual coercion and adultery, conflicts over women's status as servants or slaves, and threats to women's authority as independent household governors. Some women entered the political forum, openly participating as rebels or loyalists; others sought legal redress for their complaints. Wives protested the confines of marriage; unfree women spoke against masters and servitude. By the force of their words, all strove to thwart political leaders and local officials, as well as the power of husbands, masters, and neighbors. The tactics colonial women used, and the successes they met, reflect the struggles for empowerment taking place in defiance of the inequalities of the colonial period.

As an exotic dancer at The Great Alaskan Bush Company in Anchorage, Mechele Hughes Linehan knew how to captivate men. Three of them were convinced she was engaged to them. Then one spring morning in 1996, one man, Kent Leppink, was found in the snow, shot in the head... Days before his death, Kent had removed Mechele's name from his million-dollar life insurance policy. He wrote a letter to his family stating that, should he meet foul play, Mechele would likely be among those involved. But she wasn't charged with Kent's death. She married a doctor, moved to Olympia, Washington, and began a new life. For years, Mechele's suburban friends never suspected a thing. She went to school meetings, hosted backyard barbeques, and was beloved by her neighbors. But authorities eventually found enough evidence to mount a case against her and an alleged accomplice. Did Mechele conspire to kill her ex-fiancé? Or is she the innocent victim as she claims? Seduced by Evil is the shocking true story about a love triangle that ended in mystery—and murder...

In The Baptism of Early Virginia, Rebecca Anne Goetz examines the construction of race through the religious beliefs and practices of English Virginians. She finds the seventeenth century a critical time in the development and articulation of racial ideologies—ultimately in the idea of "hereditary heathenism," the notion that Africans and Indians were incapable of genuine Christian conversion. In Virginia in particular, English settlers initially believed that native people would quickly become Christian and would form a vibrant partnership with English people. After vicious Anglo-Indian violence dashed those hopes, English Virginians used Christian rituals like marriage and baptism to exclude first Indians and then Africans from the privileges enjoyed by English Christians—including freedom. Resistance to hereditary heathenism was not uncommon, however. Enslaved people and many Anglican ministers fought against planters’ racial ideologies, setting the stage for Christian abolitionism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Using court records, letters, and pamphlets, Goetz suggests new ways of approaching and understanding the deeply entwined relationship between Christianity and race in early America. -- James Sidbury, Rice University